


But I Can't Touch What I See

by GilgaNyan (NarryEm)



Series: Volleyball!! Gays [29]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Childhood Friends, Childhood Memories, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Haikyuu - Freeform, Letters, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Mild Smut, Post-Canon, Reminiscing, oiiwa - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-06
Updated: 2017-06-06
Packaged: 2018-11-04 14:07:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10992486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NarryEm/pseuds/GilgaNyan
Summary: Our love was like fire: fast-burning and all-consuming as it devoured our youthful passion.You and I lived in a constant state of rapture and excitement, neither of which could be made to stay.This is a compilation of letters that were never sent





	But I Can't Touch What I See

**Author's Note:**

> title from "Two Ghosts" by Harry Styles (hands down my fav song from his debut solo album)

 

Loving him was like trying to touch the sun.  His beauty and irreconcilable personality blazed and blinded those who dared to look.  

You have always been an odd one so there must be something odder about me for having loved you all my life.  It’s a lifelong affliction that I have yet to find a cure for.

We were together since the day you were born.  I was born a few weeks earlier but I do not recall the world that did not have you in it.

My earliest memory is of us: tiny versions of you and me sat in our mothers’ laps as they chatted the afternoon away.  Your hair shone gold, bathed in the sunlight streaming in through the curtains as they fluttered in the autumn breeze.  You were fast asleep and I was somehow awake, too busy watching your face.

Our mothers giggled when I grabbed for you.  They must have thought it was adorable, the way we seemed to be inseparable.  If the beginning and the end existed side by side, that had to mean that we could be forever, right?

And I would have let the world go to hell to have that my reality

 

***

 

Loving you was like a never-ending summer.  The sun seemed to burn brighter and the nights were filled with the lingering heat from the day and flames of our own love as we joined our bodies countless times to carve the overflowing love and lust onto each other’s bodies. 

“What are you grinning about, Bogekawa?” you would often ask. I would shake my head and kiss you on the nose, or the cheek, or the temple instead.  You pretended to hate it, wrinkling up your nose as you turned away. But I knew. I knew that my love for you was mirrored in the glaze in your eyes and the faint flush down your neck and ears.

 

“Hey, Iwa-chan~” I said on a summer day, one of the hottest summers in recent years.  We were laid out on the hardwood floor of my living room, clad only in our boxers as the heat made wearing clothes gross.

“Yeah?”  You sounded disinterested, but I didn’t miss the way your body was angled towards my direction.

“Do you believe in faery tales?”

You burst out laughing.  Your face blocked out the blazing sun as you hovered over me.  ‘Has the heat gone to your head?  ‘Course not.  What even made you ask that?”

I shrugged.  I realised the softness below my neck and shoulder was from your lap.  Maybe I did not notice then but our bodies always seemed to seek out one another on an instinctual level.  I snuggled in closer, my cheek resting on the inside of your thigh.  We were in junior high back then, and you still had soft, squishy thighs and stomach.

“I saw some kids reading a storybook together,” I confessed.  “It was the one about ‘The Enchanted Quill’.”

“The hell is that?” you snorted.  Your fingers were tangled up in my hair, messing it up and the smoothing it down in an endless loop.

“A glimpse into the human greed,” I answered.  “A magical crow tells the youngest sister that if she plucked a feather from it and wrote down her wishes, they would come true.  The crow did not lie.  One crucial catch is that while you could see and smell and hear the quill’s creations, you could not actually touch it.”

“Okay.  Why are you bringing this up?”

I sat up abruptly, the motion causing you to lose your balance and topple over.  I hunched over you on my hands and knees, grinning down at you as a predator would gloat over its prey.

“If I had that quill,” I began, lowering my body centimetre by centimetre with each word that tumbled out past my lips, “and wrote down  _ ‘I want to be with Iwaizumi Hajime forever’ _ , would that wish be granted?  Companionship is not something tangible nor is it something you can possess physically.”

You were confused by my words.  The cicadas didn’t let us lapse into a silence and you flicked your fingers on my forehead.

“The heat must have fried your brains,” you joked.  You locked your hands behind my neck and pulled me down until our bodies were pressed tightly together.  The late summer heat amplified our body heat and I could scarcely breathe as your face drew near mine.

“As if we need a magical quill to be together forever,” you muttered.  You patted the back of hair before kissing me squarely on the lips.  

That was our first kiss.

Mind you, if I could rewrite how our first kiss went down, it would have been romantic and cliché.  Perhaps a quick, shy peck on the lips as we took shelter from the springtime shower at a bus stop.  Or right as the clock struck midnight on New Year’s Eve.  Or maybe even on my birthday or yours, and smile at each other afterwards to make up for the awkward mood that settled in between us.

Alas, no.  You had to be the one to decide when and how our first kiss would go down.  

I can still taste the sweat drop from your upper lip; I can feel my heart thundering in my eardrums and your racing heartbeat through our chests; I can hear the cicadas’ cry and the birds’ chirps;  I can see your eyes and lips fold into that carefree smile.

“See, Oikawa?  You are not the only one who’s been worrying himself sick for loving his childhood friend.”

Your smile didn’t waver when my eyes started to water.  I wasn’t aware of what I was blubbering until I heard you say those same word back to me:

“I love you.”

 

***

 

Loving you throughout our journey in volleyball and school was like watching the autumn leaves fall. The vivid colours never stay for long and I knew that my time with you on the court was limited.  Try as I might, I could never fully match the boundless talent and instinct you had for volleyball. I could not let you confine yourself to our small town in a trap named love.

So I dealt the final blow. 

It was an especially breathtaking night.  News of the national team drafting you (and Ushiwaka) had just been released and we had come home after a party.  Everyone was in the mood to celebrate and it was only natural that they were out to get your hammered; Matsukawa and Hanamaki were the main culprits behind that.  It was a struggle, having to carry a grown man over 180 centimetres tall by myself.  Your drunken habit of clinging to me and demanding kisses did not help at all.  You tended to be even more affectionate and sensual when drunk and I never stood a chance against your clumsy seduction, tripping over your feet and words as you tried to get me to your bed after I helped you change.

I held you like I would any other night.  I lost the sense you and I in the pleasure of our bodies melting into one until I could not tell where I ended and where you began.

 

People say that you are beautiful and talented and you smile back at them with a polite thank-you. 

To me, you are a monster.  A beautiful monster that captures people’s hearts until they are putty in your hands.

 

After countless rounds after rounds of lovemaking, you curled up into my side like a sated beast after a feast. The moon danced over your good side (you would always argue that every single side of you was flawless) and in that moment, my heart stopped.  I knew I had to do it right there and then.

“Tooru,” I started to say. But you easily hushed me by covering up the words with a vicious kiss and rolling atop my body.

“Stop it,” I protested.  You didn’t listen. 

You grabbed for my cock and stroked it until it was hard again.  Flashing that devilish grin at me, you sank upon it. That grin shifted into a grimace as you were still sore and sensitive but you never gave up; you never do once you set your mind to do something.

“Hajime~” you purred, your voice dripping with pure sex and promise of ecstasy. 

“Tooru,” I replied, a perfect copy of your tone.

“Don’t do this,” you begged. Your eyes were shining as the moonlight washed over your exquisite, pale body.

“That’s what I want to say,” I whispered back.  I placed my hand on your soft, pink-tinted cheek.  You covered it with your own hand, dragging it over to your mouth to kiss the palm.

“Tooru.  You have to let me go.”

“I don’t have to!” you exploded. Your grip tightened until I could feel the bones in my fingers creak.  “We can still stay together.”

My hand fell out of your vice-like grip when you lifted your hands to hide your tears behind them.

“You have to.  Training and press will keep you busy. I have to take my education seriously myself.  I will only be a burden that keeps you looking back when the only thing on your mind should be sprinting forward with the national team.”

I pulled down your hand.  You hated to let other people see you cry.  You are a creature of extreme pride but you also have a fragile, soft heart. 

I sat up and caught the teardrops with kisses.  Your sobs filled up the still, sultry night air and I kept holding you.  Your tears ran out eventually and you fell asleep.

I dreaded the morning.  Looping thoughts and my own melancholy kept me up til the sun rose again.

You were oddly silent when you woke.  You all but escaped to the bathroom and took a long shower.  Breakfast had gone cold by the time you emerged from the bathroom.

“Our last breakfast together, is it?” you remarked.

“I’m not kicking you out right away,” I retorted.  “Besides, it’s not as though you are ready to move to Tokyo now.”

You shrugged.  I fed you a spoonful of scrambled eggs when you opened your mouth without a thought.  “You’re gonna help me, yeah?”

“Sure.” 

I had to. Not just because I was your friend but also because it will help me send away my feelings alongside your things in our flat.

 

***

 

Iwa-chan is a monster.  A hard-headed, strong, kind and lovable monster to whom I have surrendered up my heart.

People would often say that you were brusque and stoic.   But those of us who had the privilege of knowing and loving you knew that that initial impression could not be further from the truth.

Your eyes shone like diamonds whenever you scored with a powerful spike; you perked up after an especially clean serve; you celebrated our wins and cried over our losses just like everyone else on our volleyball team.

And your eyes took on that tender, awestruck look whenever I caught them fixated on me.

I was first made aware of my love for you when we were snot-nosed brats in primary school.  It was a time of puppy love and when we discovered our passion for volleyball.  You were taller than me back then and so many girls swooned over your standoffish demeanor and athleticism.

That made me burn with jealousy.

Hajime-chan should be mine, so why should those girls take you away from my side?  They had no right to whisk you away and demand that you spend more time with them during the lunch hour.  At one point, I actually hated the girls for liking you.

But you proved to be my loyal friend.  You never spent more than ten minutes with them when you had no choice but to play nice with them.  You always made up for your absence by being extra kind to me when we hung out after school.

 

You are a monster who slowly gobbled up my heart over the years.  It started out as nibbles, small chunks of my heart that were negligible.  But the missing parts became more obvious as time kept on ticking.  

I came to accept the fact that I was hopelessly in love with you by the tender young age of twelve.

So why did you have to go and tear it down in our twentieth summer?

The thrills of joining the ranks of Ryujin Nippon did not last.  I got used to the glowing praises that they would sing of me because they could not replace what I needed the most.  They gave me new nicknames, none as colourful nor heart-felt as the ones you used to call me by.  The Serve Monster.  Beautiful Monster Server.  King of the Dragons.  (Although, that King nickname was quickly given to Tobio-chan when he joined us a year after I did).

But none of that mattered.  Me, I’m just trying to remember how it feels to have a heartbeat keep on living my dull, grey life as the illustrious setter.

 

All these memories, all my fantasies of our reunion, they are merely two ghosts swimming in a glass half-empty, half-full of wishes, nostalgia and longing.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I searched up ‘lesser known faery tales’ and this is what google gave me.  You can read more about The Enchanted Quill here
> 
> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/maria-tatar/10-lesserknown-fairy-tale_b_6755354.html
> 
>  
> 
> Comments really do help to keep me goimg :)


End file.
